Tag: vix

Research into the Immersive Environment Instrument (IEI) continues and this post is about the visual surround aspect of the presentation. For background information on this project click here. There are lots of links to examples, but none I have the right to re-post. My digital artwork, UniversityNet, has become a kind of logo for the IEI, so I post it to break up the text heaviness of research.

My goal is to bring the cinematic experience of film into live performance within a virtual reality simulation. Exploring a non-linear narrative that references three time periods — past, present and future, to construct a communication that is open to individual interpretation. Resonating with an audience on an emotional level, the performer improvises each show as a unique construct. Using a sensor array, events are triggered with dance-like motions that communicate emotional intention through gesture.

The University of California, Santa Barbara is the host institution for the AlloSphere, an incredible facility designed by Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin. Dr. JoAnn Kuchera Morin assembled a team that included world renowned architect, Robert Venturi, to design and construct this feat of engineering. She talks about her work on TED with a really interesting video.

In 2000 she began the creation, design, and development of a Digital Media Center within the California Nanosystems Institute. The culmination of her design is the Allosphere Research Laboratory, a three-story metal sphere inside an echo-free cube, designed for immersive, interactive scientific and artistic investigation of multi-dimensional data sets. She serves as Director of the Allosphere Research Laboratory and Center. . — XMedia Lab

There is a lot of interesting research in Santa Barbara that may apply to the construction of the Immersive Environment Instrument, but it is not portable and it was designed to facilitate research, not performance. There is no room for an audience, but compositions could be shown on video as seen on the TED site. The challenge would be to translate as much of the effect of this multi-million dollar facility into a portable touring show.

Many of the elements of the IEI have been used in performance before, as the idea of surround sound has been in use since the introduction generally credited to Stockhausen. The idea of surround video has been used by a collective, Workspace Unlimited, among others. Their example, Hybrid Space 360, is really interesting because it has already been presented at EMPAC – Experimental Media and performing arts Center Rensselaer in New York, 2008. There are photos on their site, but as it in Flash, you have to navigate yourself, click on projects to view the data . . . I cannot even link directly.

Their interesting concept is of an interactive installation, not a performer controlled environment. The Immersive Environment Instrument will tour with Victoria Gibson in Girl Can Dream, the first composition for the instrument. Later, other musicians will be invited to join Victoria to expand the sensor array and integrate other personality styles.

Ubuntu Users — The most promising thread in this area seems to be freepv not found in a repository by Synaptic yet. Build instructions on the site.

Anyone with the quicktime plug-in can view movies made of panoramic photos on this company’s site — Studio 360. These examples are not the photo itself, but a movie of the panoramic photo.

The concept of surround video is tricky, so I propose to set up separate nodes, the same way panoramic photos are really separate photos. This will also give me more flexibility in using lights to soften the edges of each node to aid in blending or to use the nodes a unique, distinct images. I do not expect surround video to be available soon as large studios are having enough of a challenge with Imax, Omnimax and conventional 3D films. I think that it is more cost effective and realistic to project each node independently and let the instrument create a Cinematic Virtual Reality (CVR) illusion. Cinematic Virtual Reality is a term I created for the visual component to the Immersive Environment Instrument.

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"Organic photovoltaics, made from carbon and plastic, promise a cheaper way of generating electricity.
This new study shows that organics can now be just as efficient as silicon.
Organic photovoltaics (OPV) can be made of compounds that are dissolved in ink so they can be printed on thin rolls of plastic, they can bend or curve around structures or even be incorporated into clothing."

There are constantly new research developments regarding solar energy, striving for more efficiency, greater safety and less cost. Renewable energy is the future; the possibilities are limitless.

The secret overtures offering a financial backstop to Kinder Morgan began in March, even though the Canadian government had made it clear, during its early negotiations with the Texas multinational, that it didn't want to buy the pipeline expansion project, says a new document filed with the U.S. Se...

#nopipelines #oilspill #courageGrandmother, Retired Teacher Jailed Up to Six Months for Protecting Her Land

Ellen Sue Gerhart, 63, has been a key leader in the multi-year campaign against Energy Transfer Partners’ Mariner East 2 natural gas liquids pipeline, which is being built through her property.

[Huntingdon, PA] On Friday, August 3, Huntingdon County Judge George Zanic sentenced 63-year-old grandmother, retired teacher, and landowner Ellen Sue Gerhart to two to six months in jail and a $2,000 fine for indirect criminal contempt of court.

Judge Zanic’s decision was based on accusations from lawyers for Texas-based oil and gas giant Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), the developer of the pipeline project through Gerhart’s land. The company alleged that Gerhart had baited a bear onto the pipeline easement on her wooded 27-acre property.

Elise Gerhart, daughter of Ellen, said, “If you build a pipeline through the woods, you should expect to see bears and other wildlife. Judge Zanic gave this $50 billion company the power of eminent domain over my family’s property and our governor gave them the permits. My mom’s protest on her own property is not the injustice here.”

In an interview prior to her arrest, Ellen Gerhart said, “We’ve had no choice but to take a stand and defend what our government officials are unwilling to protect. Our right to peacefully object to an unjust and dangerous pipeline should be protected over the profit margin of these foreign corporations.”

Rich Raiders, attorney for the Gerhart family, said “The eminent domain condemnation case filed by Sunoco against the Gerharts remains ongoing. The Gerharts have also appealed Sunoco’s environmental permits granted by the Department of Environmental Protection concerning the wetlands permits issued to Sunoco on this project. The trial before the Environmental Hearing Board is scheduled for August 29th.

Raiders continued, “Their are still charges of harassment and unlawful taking alleged against Mrs. Gerhart pending. Mrs. Gerhart believes that these charges are a distraction from Sunoco’s ongoing litany of permit suspensions, failed horizontal directional drilling, and various project delays. We believe that the company did not present evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Mrs. Gerhart’s protests were criminal. Mrs. Gerhart disagrees with Judge Zanic’s decision today and is reviewing her options and will pursue her rights to the fullest extent.”

Ellen Gerhart is an outspoken advocate, not only to protect her own land but also to protect the hundreds of waterways impacted across Pennsylvania by ETP’s Mariner East 2 pipeline project. The Gerharts have never given ETP permission to build through their family land.

Since construction began, ETP has reported an astounding 111 spills and has been issued over 65 violations by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. On May 23, ETP spilled 4,000 gallons of drilling fluid on the Gerhart property, threatening the family’s well water.

Ellen and her family’s ongoing opposition to the project has led to significant intimidation and harassment on the part of ETP, their private security contractor TigerSwan, and local authorities. The Gerharts are involved in numerous cases against state agencies and ETP over use of eminent domain, deficient environmental permits, and violations of federal civil rights laws.

"The World Geological Society finally settled on the end of World War II as the onset of the Anthropocene—sharp escalation and destruction of the environment, not only global warming, carbon dioxide, other greenhouse gases, but also such things as plastics in the ocean, which are predicted to be greater than the weight of fish in the ocean not far in the future.
Humans beings, right now, this generation, for the first time in history, have to ask, “Will human life survive?”

Time to end the Anthropocene era and move to an era when humans care about each other and the Earth enough to stop "having severe and deleterious effects on the environment in which human and other life can survive."